Mayo Clinic Radio: Flu season

November 15, 2018

The 2017–2018 flu season was difficult. More than 900,000 people were hospitalized and more than 80,000 Americans died of the flu during the winter of 2017–2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While most of those deaths were in people over 65, the flu also killed 180 young children and teenagers. That's more than in any other year since the CDC began using its current surveillance methods. Recently, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new flu treatment for the first time in 20 years. But the FDA reminds people that the new treatment does not replace the flu vaccine.